Drama of Love and Death

Edward Carpenter

Description

In this fascinating volume, English poet, philosopher and activist Edward Carpenter offers readers a sweeping theory of love and death that is informed by his knowledge of then-cutting-edge science. Drawing comparisons to the behaviors of simple organisms, animals, and past civilizations, Carpenter weaves a unified account of the meaning of life through the framework of these two cornerstones of human experience.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776538874
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH
A STUDY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION AND TRANSFIGURATION
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EDWARD CARPENTER
 
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The Drama of Love and Death A Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration First published in 1912 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-887-4 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-888-1 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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The Delphian Sibyl Chapter I - Introductory Chapter II - The Beginnings of Love Chapter III - Love as an Art Chapter IV - Its Ultimate Meanings Chapter V - The Art of Dying Chapter VI - The Passage of Death Chapter VII - Is there an After-Death State? Chapter VIII - The Underlying Self Chapter IX - Survival of the Self Chapter X - The Inner or Spiritual Body Chapter XI - On the Creation and Materialization of Forms Chapter XII - Reincarnation Chapter XIII - The Divine Soul Chapter XIV - The Return Journey Chapter XV - The Mystery of Personality Chapter XVI - Conclusion Appendix Endnotes
The Delphian Sibyl
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( On her mountain-slope overlooking the Earth )
The coastline ranges far, the skies unfold; The mountains rise in glory, stair on stair; The darting Sun seeks Daphne as of old In thickets dark where laurel blooms are fair. The ancient sea, deep wrinkled, ever young, With salt lip kisses still the silver strand; In caverns dwell the Nymphs, their loves among, And Titans still with strange fire shake the land.
A thousand generations here have come, And wandered o'er these hills, and faced the light; A thousand times slight man from mortal womb Has leapt, and lapsed again into the night. Here tribesmen dwelt, and fought, and curst their star, And scoured both land and sea to sate their needs; Prophetic eyes of youth gazed here afar, With lips half open brooding on great deeds.
Nor dreamed each little mortal of the Past, Nor the deep sources of his life divined, Watching his herds, or net in ocean cast, Deaf to th' ancestral voices down the wind; Nor guessed what strange sweet likenesses should rise, Selves of himself, far in the future years, With his own soul within their sunlit eyes, And in their hearts his secret hopes and fears.
Yet I—I saw. Yea, from my lofty stand I saw each life continuous extend Beyond its mortal bound, and reach a hand To others and to others without end. I saw the generations like a river Flow down from age to age, and all the vast Complex of human passion float and quiver— A wondrous mirror where the Gods were glassed.
And still through all these ages scarce a change Has touched my mountain slopes or seaward curve, And still the folk beneath the old laws range, And from their ancient customs hardly swerve; Still Love and Death, veiled figures, hand in hand, Move o'er men's heads, dread, irresistible, To ope the portals of that other land Where the great Voices sound and Visions dwell.
Chapter I - Introductory
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Love and Death move through this world of ours like thingsapart—underrunning it truly, and everywhere present, yet seeming tobelong to some other mode of existence. When Death comes, breaking intothe circle of our friends, words fail us, our mental machinery ceases tooperate, all our little stores of wit and wisdom, our maxims, ourmottoes, accumulated from daily experience, evaporate and are of noavail. These things do not seem to touch or illuminate in any effectiveway the strange vast Presence whose wings darken the world for us. Andwith Love, though in an opposite sense, it is the same. Words are of nouse, all our philosophy fails—whether to account for the pain, or tofortify against the glamour, or to describe the glory of the experience.
These figures, Love and Death, move through the world, like closestfriends indeed, never far separate, and together dominating it in a kindof triumphant superiority; and yet like bitterest enemies, dogging eachother's footsteps, undoing each other's work, fighting for the bodiesand souls of mankind.
Is it possible that at length and after ages we may attain to liberateourselves from their overlordship—to dominate them and make them ourministers and attendants? Can we wrest them from their seeming tyrannyover the human race, and from their hostility to each other? Can wepersuade them to lay aside their disguise and appear to us for what theyno doubt are—even the angels and messengers of a new order ofexistence?
It is a great and difficult enterprise. Yet it is one, I think, which weof this generation cannot avoid. We can no longer turn our faces awayfrom Death, and make as if we did not perceive his presence or hear hischallenge. This age, which is learning to look the facts of Naturesteadily in the face, and see through them, must also learn to facethis ultimate fact and look through it. And it will surely—and perhapsonly—be by allying ourselves to Love that we shall be able to doso—that we shall succeed in our endeavor.
For after all it is not in the main on account of ourselves that wecherish a grudge against the 'common enemy' and dispute his authority,but for the sake of those we love. For ourselves we may be indifferentor acquiescent; but somehow for those others, for those divine ones whohave taken our hearts into their keeping, we resent the idea that they can perish. We refuse to entertain the thought. Love in some mysteriousway forbids the fear of death. Whether it be Siegfried who tramples theflaming, circle underfoot, or the Prince of Heaven who breaks his waythrough the enchanted thicket, or Orpheus who reaches his Eurydice evenin the jaws of hell, or Hercules who wrestles with the lord of theunderworld for Alcestis—the ancient instinct of mankind has declared inno uncertain tone that in this last encounter Love must vanquish.
It is in the name, then, of one of these gods that we challenge theother. And yet not without gratitude to both. For it is Azrael'sinvasion of our world, it is his challenge to us , that (perhaps morethan anything else) rivets our loyalty to each other. It is his frownthat wakes friendship in human souls and causes them to tighten thebonds of mutual devotion. In some strange way these two, though seemingenemies, play into each other's hands; each holds the secret of theother, and between them they conceal a kindred life and some commonintimate relation. We feel this in our inmost intuitions; we perceive itin our daily survey of human affairs; and we find it illustrated (as Ishall presently point out) in general biology and the life-histories ofthe most primitive cells. The theme, in fact, of the interplay of Loveand Death will run like a thread-motive through this book—not withoutsome illumination, as I would hope, cast by each upon the other, and byboth upon our human destiny.
Chapter II - The Beginnings of Love
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As I have just suggested, the great human problems of Love and Death arestrangely and remarkably illustrated in the most primitive forms oflife; and I shall consequently make no apology for detaining the readerfor a few moments over modern investigations into the subjects ofcell-growth, reproduction and death. If this chapter is a littletechnical and complex in places, still it may be worth while delayingover it, and granting it some patient consideration, on account of thecurious light the study throws on the rest of the book and the generalquestions therein discussed.
Love seems to be primarily (and perhaps ultimately) an interchange ofessences. The Protozoa—those earliest cells, the progenitors of thewhole animal and vegetable kingdom—grow by feeding on the minuteparticles which they find in the fluid surrounding them. The growthcontinues, till ultimately, reaching the limit of convenient size, acell divides into two or more portions; and so reproduces itself. Thedescendant cells or portions so thrown off are simply continuations, bydivision, of the life of the original or parent cell—so that it has notunfrequently been said that, in a sense, these Protozoa are immortal,since their life continues indefinitely (with branching but withoutbreak) from generation to generation. This form of reproduction bysimple budding or division extends even up into the higher types oflife, where it is sometimes found side by side with the later sexualform of reproduction, as in the case of so-called parthenogenesis among insects. It is indeed a kind of virgin-birth; and is wellillustrated in the vegetable world by the budding of bulbs, or by thefact that a twig torn from a shrub and placed in the ground willcommonly grow and continue the life of the parent plant; or in the lowerstages of the animal world, where, among many of the worms, insects,sponges, &c., the life may similarly be continued by division, or by theextrusion of a bud or an egg, without any sex-contact or sex-actionwhatever.
This seems in fact to be the original and primitive form of generation;and it obviously depends upon growth . Generation is the superfluity,the [Greek: hubris], of growth, and connects itself in the first instance with thesatisfaction of hunger. First hunger, then growth, then reproduction bydivision or budding. And this process may go on apparently for manygenerations without change—in the case of certain Protozoa even tohundreds of generations. But a time comes when the growth-power andenergy decay, and the vitality diminishes [1] —at any rate, as a rule. [2] But then a variation occurs. Two cells unite, exchange fluids, and partagain. It is a new form of nourishment; it is the earliest form of Love.It is a very intimate